[FEATURE REQUEST] EV Charger Option not Discharge Battery

Q&A and troubleshooting EVCS
, , , ,
1

Hi, community.

It would be very useful to implement an option in the EV charger settings to enable/disable the use of battery for vehicle charging, when you need to charge in manual mode or calendar mode and you want to use the grid and not the home battery.

Regards.

2

@Ricardo I have added the new “feature_request” tag for you, this will make it easier for the RND folks to track.

4 Likes
3

Hi all,

I also have a client who wants to have EV charge on Auto during the day, but then Schedule to not start charging at night (or no PV) until like 10/11:00pm. Without going into app or vrm each time.

4

Yes, the same thing happens to me, it would be useful to be able to set a night charging schedule in automatic mode, and not have to change the mode manually.

5

Hi, Ricardo.
About ‘settings to enable/disable the use of battery for vehicle charging’.
In manual or scheduled mode EVCS just contributes power. Only the inverter decides from where that power is taken (backup battery, grid, or solar). EVCS can’t tell the inverter to ‘use grid power instead of backup battery power’. The only possible way for such option: stop charging if the EV consuming from the backup battery. But I am not sure if that is something you mean.

About ‘night charging schedule in automatic mode’. In auto mode, EVCS will charge the EV only if the system has some solar excess power. That is not possible in the night. Please describe your idea with some examples.

6

I think UI should be changed:

  • Start should always start charging (as Manual)
  • Stop should always stop charging (always!)
  • Power of charge should always be able to changed.
  • Schedulers should always be switched on (or have independent global switch on/off). Only every scheduler line should have on/off checkbox as it is now.
  • “Auto” should have independent switch on/off and should work independent of Schedulers and Manual.
1 Like
7

Hi Nicolas, thank you for your reply,

I understand that the EVCS does not decide where to take energy from, but if we know the energy used by the EVCS, can’t we tell the inverter not to produce that power from the battery?

About the automatic mode, the mode would be, charge surplus when you have and charge at night from 00:00 to 8:00, other brands of charger do this and the customer does not have to enter the APP to change, the idea is that you can charge from the sun if possible and at night with cheap light.

8

Yes, we can’t tell. It looks like it should be done on the inverter side.
About another topic.
It looks like it can be solved if the scheduled mode has more options. At least mode selection for each scene. Then you can configure scenes and keep EVCS in scheduled mode only.

1 Like
9

That would be great! :grinning:

10

Noted!

2 Likes
11

We have just installed an EVCS, was going to use nodered to adjust the grid set point based on the EV power drawer, similar to how we dump solar to grid rather than into the batteries. But apart from saving on battery cycles I’m not sure what else it would benefit.